The nearness of you
by PhoebeDreams
Summary: Ginny and Draco go from work partners to friends to lovers. Four stations on their journey.


Ginny and Draco go from work partners to friends to lovers – four stations on their journey

Partners

They cooperated surprisingly well. They had a few initial rows like the one about Ginny putting up photographs of her entire family on her desk, but after a while, they settled into the new situation. It took them only a week to learn how the other each drank their coffee and to automatically bring each other one when one of them went down to the coffee machine. They even found out that they had some things in common, like the fact that they were both definitely not morning persons. So they usually spent the mornings peacefully calm and silent and did most of their work in the evenings. After a few months, they took to taking files back to Ginny's flat (if they wanted to sit in her comfortable living room) or Malfoy manor (if they needed the library). Those evenings were the time they got the most work done, and they also got to know each other better.

Within half a year, they were the most efficient team in the auror department. Of course, there were also problems. He still wasn't able to converse civilly with her brother Ron, who came by to pick Ginny up for lunch once a week. They never failed to pick a fight, until Ginny finally forbid them to talk to each other.

It also annoyed Ginny to no end how all the secretaries in their department and pretty much every living female person in a five mile-radius started swooning and flirting whenever he walked past them, and how she had to constantly end his flirty conversations if she wanted them to get any work done, which in turn made her very unpopular with the female office stuff, and soon there were rumours about Ginny being jealous of Draco's admirers. Of course that was ridiculous, though she had to admit that it was hard to refuse him anything when he smiled at her in that way that made her feel like she was the only person in the world for him. Of course she knew that it was only a trick to get whatever he wanted, but it was definitely hard to resist his charm. Though he seldom used it on her – more popular tones in their conversations were sneering, screaming and threatening.

Friends

But even though they could be called friends (though none of them would actually say that word) he was surprised about that weird, empty feeling he had when she got sick and had to stay home for a week. He couldn't be missing her, could he? During the first few weeks he had prayed that she would fall sick, and hopefully so much so that she'd have to stay home forever. Now he felt like all the energy had been drained from him. His work wasn't fun without her there to annoy him and to pinch him in the side and to just keep him going, no matter how exhausted he was. There was no one there to crack a joke and lighten the mood when they were working on a particularly difficult case. No one to bring him a cup of coffee when he was close to falling asleep on his desk. No one to fill the room with warmth and cinnamon smell and a homely feeling.

Of course, there was also no one to shoot him angry glances when he was flirting with the secretaries, and he had already taken one of them out and enjoyed himself very much.

Still, after she had been absent for a week and the weird feeling had still not subsided, he bought a fine pale green Pashmina shawl, figuring a sick woman could use something warm and luxurious to help her get better, and flooed to her apartment. To his surprise, the empty, aching feeling lifted the second he saw her again, making him hug her. And he could have sworn her eyes welled up a little when she saw him. It was a shock to see her weak and pale with feverish eyes, but she swore she was already better and had moved from the bed to the sofa in order to watch muggle television (a birthday gift from her father). But when she said she would need at least another week to recover, he didn't want to return to work for the first time since he had begun. When he promised to keep visiting her, she smiled and said in a raspy voice:

"Yes, and keep bringing such wonderful gifts. But whatever you decide to bring – don't bring me home-made chicken soup, I get about five bowls of that each day. Keep sticking to the luxury goods, you are a Malfoy after all, and expensive gifts are expected from someone who owns a manor!" It was a joke, but he kept true to his word and visited her every day, always bringing something luxurious with him. He had asked Blaise's girlfriend Celine what kinds of things girls liked, and stuck to the list she gave him. In the course of a week, Ginny got scented candles, bath salts, expensive Swiss chocolate, a cashmere blanket and a relaxing facial mask. It was that last gift that made her suspicious, and he had to admit he had got some help from Blaise's girlfriend. But instead of being angry, she threw her arms around him and hugged him.

"That is so cute!" In that very moment, two things happened that had never happened to him before: He blushed, and he got a really weird flutter in his stomach.

Mystery

On the weekend before Ginny's return to work, Blaise forced him to accompany him to a costume ball, something he normally hated. Well, not the ball part, naturally he was a good dancer, but dressing up. Consequently, his costume consisted of a black mask and a colouring charm to dye his telltale silver hair dark brown. Of course his eyes were still piercingly grey, but he had found out that people only associated the blond hair with the name Malfoy, so he felt safe. He had no desire whatsoever to be hit on by women because of his money or the fact that he had hero status since he had run over to the light side before the final battle and had been a huge help to Harry Potter, actually fighting by his side when the Boy-Who-Lived defeated Voldemort.

No, tonight, he would be incognito, and he would not be out looking for a woman to take home for a night. Actually, he hadn't done that for quite a while, apart from the secretary last week, which had turned out to be less fulfilling than it used to be. He wondered if maybe the time for one-night-stands was over and he should move on to the next big adventure – relationships.

While he was still leaning against a wall, quietly watching the dancing and chatting people, he noticed a woman standing by the side of the dance floor. She was wearing a long, dark green satin gown that left her pale, freckled shoulders nude and swished around her feet, showing at first glance that she had a very good figure – small but curvaceous. Apparently, she didn't like dressing up either, for her costume consisted of a green satin mask that matched her dress and left her full pink lips free to be admired. The most extraordinary thing about her was her hair though: It reached down to the middle of her back and shone in a warm, fiery auburn tone. It reminded him a little of Ginny, though of course she always had her hair up in a knot, and he wasn't sure how long it was.

Without even thinking about it, he made his way over to her.

"Would you like to dance?" What was that funny feeling in his stomach? It reminded him of something Blaise had once told him about how nervous he felt every time he asked a woman to dance. But he couldn't be nervous, could he? He had never been nervous around women, ever. Why should he? He decided to push the strange feeling away, especially after he saw the woman smile enthusiastically at him.

"I'd love to!" she answered in a voice that was very unlike any woman's voice and very hoarse, and he pulled back surprisedly. But she just laughed quietly.

"I caught a cold recently, and my voice hasn't fully recovered yet." That was good. He was worried that she might sound like that all the time, but this cold would pass, hopefully leaving her sounding like a woman again.

"As long as that doesn't stop you from dancing, we're okay." He took a step closer to her, and noticed how good she smelled. It wasn't so much the exquisite perfume she was wearing, but an underlying smell of something oddly familiar, yet sensuous – cinnamon. He wondered what that reminded him of. Right, Ginny always smelled like cinnamon. What was the deal with that, anyway? She seemed to put that ingredient in or on everything – toast, porridge, even her coffee. Whenever she entered their office, the smell of cinnamon would immediately make the entire room feel warm and homely…

"Shouldn't we be dancing by now?" The hoarse voice shook him up. He smiled apologetically at the woman and offered her gallantly his arm to lead her on the dance floor.

"I'm sorry, my thoughts were just drifting off there for a second. It won't happen again."

She just smiled and placed her hand on his shoulder, and he followed by placing his right hand on her waist and taking her free hand while leading her into a slow waltz.

He noticed she was wearing a ring on her right hand, a slender silver band with a little flower on it and a soft pink stone in the middle. He had to think of Ginny again, for she had a very similar ring that she always played with, driving him crazy, because it made him admire her slender fingers and soft hands. The woman he was dancing with had very soft hands too, and they fit excellently into his own, long-fingered hand. Right now, he was very aware of those soft hands on his shoulder and in his own hand, and how warm they were. Was he imagining things or were those hands really extraordinarily hot? Now he noticed he was hot, too, and yet he pulled her closer, and his initial feeling of nervousness faded into another new, yet decidedly better feeling. It felt as if they weren't just dancing anymore, they were melting into each other. He could feel her breath on his neck and he knew his own was taking the same rhythm. When she laughed about a joke of his, the sudden puff of air made him shiver.

When their bodies brushed against each other, a tingle shot through him. Something very unusual was going on here, something he was eager to explore. And his last coherent thought before the room around him disappeared and there were only the two of them left was:

"I don't even know this woman – and yet it feels as if I knew her inside out."

The rest of the evening was a blur of dancing, swirling and turning and flying, always with her in his arms, and when he went home much later that night, he felt like he was a different man. She had disappeared without a word, had simply kissed him on the cheek – he could still feel it as if she had branded him with her lips – and disapparated, leaving him to lie awake all night and wonder about her.

Lovers

Draco spent the rest of the weekend thinking about his mystery woman, and when he came back to work, he was still so lost in thought that he didn't even notice the chaos in their room until Ginny walked in, two cups of coffee in her hands, leaving a wonderful note of cinnamon in the air. What was with that scent, anyway? He knew it was an aphrodisiac, but surely that couldn't have any effect here, in the middle of their cramped office. Very uncharacteristically, Ginny was silent and distant all morning, but Draco suspected she just felt a little weak from being sick so long. He quickly updated her on their newest case, and they both set to work quietly. Still his thoughts were not on the task. He let his eyes roam about the room, stopping at this and that. He noticed Ginny had a very good figure, too, when she got up and stretched to get to one of the upper shelves. He stepped closer to help her, and noticed that she smelled like cinnamon and radiated a lot of warmth. He also noticed that a strand of her hair had come loose from her usual knot, and it was unexpectedly long, reaching down to the middle of the back.

A thought was forming in the back of his head, but he couldn't quite reach it yet. Until she accidentally dropped her ring on the table, and the soft pling made the thought spring free and form, and his eyes widened when he realised what he must have felt all along, somewhere deep inside.

"Is was you!" She didn't even look up from her files.

"What was me?", she asked distractedly.

"The woman at the dance, the mystery woman who smelled like cinnamon. We danced all night." Her head shot up, eyes wide with shock as well.

"No way! He had brown hair."

"Hair-dying charm."

"Are you saying we danced all night last Saturday and didn't even know?"

"Were you at the ball?"

"Yes, Lavender made me, to celebrate my return to the living, she said."

They were both silent, looking at each other breathlessly. The air in the room seemed to flicker with electricity.

"What does that mean?" Ginny asked hoarsely, and he recognized the woman's raspy voice.

"I don't know. I mean, did you feel it too?"

"There was something going on, yes. I felt – weird. And good."

"Yes, like I've never felt before. But what is that?"

She was silent, but in her eyes, he could see the answer.

"Attraction. We're attracted to each other." Her eyes went wide open again.

"That's not possible. Maybe we were just attracted to each other that one night, because we both were someone else." It seemed like she didn't want to believe what had happened.

"Really." He got up very slowly and walked over to her desk, standing behind her. She could sense his presence as if he was an extension of her body, and yet she flinched when he laid his hands on her shoulders. She closed her eyes when they wandered up her neck, slowly freeing her hair from his knot to fall down her back, running his hands through it. Then he leant down, his warm chest against her back, and very softly placed a kiss on her neck. She sighed and relaxed under his touch, and again her ring fell from her limp hands onto the table.

The soft pling scared her up from the dreamy state his fingers and mouth, his sheer closeness had brought her in, and she quickly shoved his hands away an got up, breathing heavily.

"What are you doing?" His eyes looked feverish, his cheeks flushed, and he seemed to be struggling to return to reality. When he had calmed his breathing and regained his voice, he answered:

"Showing you what we could have together. What we could feel together."

"No. That's rubbish. Something like that would never work. We would ruin our work relationship. And I don't want to be yet another one of your one-night-stands."

"You won't be. This is not just something casual. I've never felt with any woman what I feel when I'm close to you. And I want to have more of that feeling. I want to have it every day. I want you. I don't know where that feeling came from all of a sudden, and I don't know why I never felt it before, but I know it's not going to pass." She was still standing as far away from him as possible, but her protest got weaker.

"But we're we. I mean, you are you and I am me, and this could never work, and what about my family and the colleagues and…" She was stammering and losing her concentration, because he had stepped closer again, crowding in on her. Instinctively, she took a step back, only to find that she was standing with her back to the wall and he was trapping her with his body, and his face was coming closer, and she could already feel his overwhelming presence again, and while her mind was still fighting it, her body wanted to feel his closeness again.

"You know I always get what I want, and I want you, even if I have to put on a mask every time I want to get close to you." And then his lips closed over hers and the world disappeared.


End file.
